I Regret Almost Everything

McNally’s house on Martha’s Vineyard is symbolic of peace and respite. McNally bought the house shortly after finalizing his and Lynn’s divorce. To McNally, securing the house proved that he “was starting over” (145). The atmosphere of the island facilitated this sense of renewal: “In those days, the feeling on Martha’s Vineyard was closer to the unhurried world of the 1950s than to the busy world of private plans and text messaging it’s become” (145). Further, McNally’s Martha’s Vineyard home afforded him a new project into which he could channel his frustrations and sadness. Initially, the house “felt pokey and cramped, but the closer [McNally’s] six-bedroom house got to completion, the more comfortable the cottage became” (145). Over the years following, this would also be the place McNally spent his summers. The house offered him a retreat from his high-pressure life in Manhattan, and gave him a space to spend time with his family.

McNally’s decision to attempt to die by suicide at the Martha’s Vineyard house also contributes to the setting’s symbolic resonance. Ife he’d “taken ten more sleeping pills in August 2018, [he] would have died” here (154). The house therefore felt like a place McNally wanted to be when he passed away, thus underscoring its peacefulness.

Despite this personal tragedy, McNally has retained the house and continues to spend time here. His unswaying attachment to Martha’s Vineyard conveys its lasting impact on him psychologically.

The Cotswolds house McNally and Alina bought together is symbolic of the Complexity of Family Relationships. McNally regarded the place as his and Alina’s dream house. It was located in the Cotswolds—a rural region in South West England—and set on a large piece of farmland. At the time of purchase, “it was a ninety-year-old stone house with an interior that had been ‘modernized’ in the seventies into something joylessly suburban” (243). As with McNally’s Martha’s Vineyard house, he devoted large sums of money and numerous hours to renovating the Great Brockhampton Farm house. There were, he claims, “no lengths I wouldn’t go to in order to make the house perfect. And by perfect, I mean imperfect and undesigned-looking” (243).

The “ideal” appearance and atmosphere of the house symbolizes McNally and Alina’s seemingly idyllic marriage. Beneath the surface, however, McNally and his second wife were rapidly drifting apart. With the exception of one night, the couple never slept together in the Cotswolds house. Their marriage was unstable, but they were trying to present a secure facade to their children and to the world. The same was true of the house. These aspects of the setting capture the potential instability of family relationships, and how even the most concerted efforts to repair these dynamics might not succeed.